Good news, everyone!

I just got a letter from Riversedge of UTPA that they are publishing my story in their December volume!

Yea! A legit journal publishing my story! I didn't even have to grovel to no vanity publishers.

The story was from fall of 2008 when I took a creative nonfiction class. We wrote lots of personal essays. It was like group therapy where I got graded for my feelings. Instead of a final paper, the professor told us to submit one of our papers in for publication so we'll "get used to process".

Yea! So far so good!

This totally makes up for the fact that I still haven't found a job yet. I've been looking all summer and no one's hiring me. I know I'm over-qualified for most of the jobs I've applied for, and that might be why they're not hiring me. Maybe they're afraid I'll leave right after training or something.

Oh well :(

As far as projects go, I recently got a top-whorl spindle to spin lace. I was so excited because the people in the Youtube videos made it look so easy. I've found out that they've all been lying to me. I'm spinning and spinning, but all my lace looks like worsted. I guess I'll have a nice cozy hat by winter. I'm still pretty excited about it though. Soon when I have more practice, I want to get all the pretty roving from Etsy.

Last thing! My parents got a puppy! A PUPPY!! She's too cute, her name is Birdie and she loves people. She's a Labradoodle mix and she's so small. Right now she's about Maomao's size but so innocent and clueless all the time. Cute little Birdie, she's still figuring out life.

Here's a picture!



She sleeps a lot!

Update

I'm finally done with the semester. I finished the grades a couple days ago and entered them in with the professor, got all my own grades, and even finished cleaning the apartment! As of it I still do not have a job, but I think it'll be OK. I'm going to start looking seriously in June, but I believe I deserve a break for now!

About a month ago I went through a serious doily phase.



They are all double stranded with size 10 yarn. It was my fairly successful attempt to destash much of my doily yarn. It's worked pretty well so far. And I am finally convinced now that knitting takes much less yarn than crocheting. While I cannot vouch for the single knit = single crochet, but with the sizes of some of those doilies, I would've never gotten that much out of crocheting.

After the doilies, I decided to try my hand at hats!





Not too bad! Now both Joey and I will be ready for this winter. I also made a matching scarf with my hat.



~~~

Life has been pretty decent so far. I bought Michael Fuller's book and will be continuing my classical Chinese over the summer by myself. I'll start by slowly translating Confucius's Analects and some of Mozi from the school library. These two have been translated enough by professionals that I can double check without bugging the professor to death.

Classical Chinese is crazy! But once you learn the rules, it's surprisingly easy to read. While there are a lot of ambiguous translations, the grammar is fairly straight forward once I churn through all the crazy participles.

And Maomao lost 3 pounds! She's so cute.

November

Outline for this entry:

Introduction
I. School
- evidence
- evidence
- evidence
II. Knitting
- pictures
- evidence
III. CrossFit
- evidence
- Mel
Conclusion

It's that time of the semester again! It's the time when I regret goofing around all semester long, and now everything is going to snowball until the end of December. At the end of December I will breath a sigh of relief at finishing my papers, and when January comes around, I still won't learn my lesson.

I have a pretty good idea of my papers for my classes now.

For Thought in Early China:

I will investigate the portrayal of the sage-kings in both informal and philosophical writings in early China. The sources I will be using are the Legend of the Warring States and the writings from Mengzi, Mozi, and Hanfeizi. The paper will be divided into two parts where the first will examine the role of the sage-kings in folklore and flood myths. The second part will investigate the purpose of the sage-kings in early Chinese philosophy, especially in context with funeral rituals, filial piety, and governing.

For Nuclear Age: (I will still have to talk to Dr. Channell for a bit)

I hope to examine family structure and values during the Cold War era. Family dynamics often change in times of crises. I will investigate both the prescriptive form of the family dynamics through propaganda circulating during the time; for example, TV shows, magazines, and newspapers.

~~~

I have also been looking into PHD possibilities. For a long time I thought for sure I was going to do something with modern Chinese history, but could never focus it on something. The lack of knowledge was hindering me more than I thought. But with the classes I took, I managed to narrow down the scope. I really hope to do something with Chinese historiography. I am interested in history, but I love the study of the process more. As one of my classmates said, "there's only so much you can do with pure history." It's just a series of events after all. So it's my duty to connect it in a meaningful way without sounding like an encyclopedia.

I found some articles while researching about historiography during the Communist regime. It looks very promising! Once I turn in my papers, I'll have to investigate.

~~~

Now onto fun stuff! Despite being really busy, I still can't give up my knitting.




The top one I finished yesterday, and the bottom one is just an updated picture of an older doily. The top one did not turn out the exact way I wanted it to, so I may reblock it this week.

I am in crazy-doily making mode, especially the knitting kind. The site Yarn Over is my new best friend. I'm going to do every pattern on it!

~~~

Mel! I want to ask you...

Is there any way for me to go to one CrossFit session with you in Seattle? Please let me know if it can be worked out with your gym somehow.

John from CrossFit Richardson and I have been talking about this. I'm there to represent our humble little division, and I have to kick some kind of ass.

In conclusion, even though I'm terribly busy, I still like to play. Yea! A+!

New Additions to the Family

We gained two new additions to the family over the weekend; Joey's bike and a new mattress set. I don't have a picture of the mattress, but here's a picture of Joey and the bike.



We originally agreed not to get a bike until he turned forty, but that promise obviously did not hold. I feel better about it now. The idea of the huge trucks and SUV's that litter the streets worried me more than any potential irresponsibility. I can't wait until gas prices become so lucrative that more people will be forced to ride bikes and scooters. But that's another lost cause since gas prices are dropping.

I just finished grading over eighty freshmen exams this past week. Most of them were decent and showed some sort of attentive behavior in class. There were some, however, that made me worry a little. Did they really believe the stuff they were writing? Or were they just making up stuff to fill a page? I'm hoping for the latter, because if it were the former, then they must have spent the past eighteen years of their lives in a well.

So it's that time of the year again! No, not just hectic Christmas present making time, but also paper proposals and research! Even though I'm taking three classes this semester, I only have to do formal papers for two; the Nuclear Age class and Thought and Philosophy in Early China. I have a preliminary bibliography and a sketchy proposal for both. Once I research more, I will put up my proposal.

For projects, I haven't finished anything yet. I am so close to finishing up the Oriental Butterfly.



It's so close to being done, but I just can't bring myself to finish it. December might be my finishing up month then.

I have a suspicious feeling that I won't achieve all my grand plans for handmade crafts this year, but at least I tried. I'm too fickle in my craft making process, and that leads to a lot of happiness with not a lot of results. So that means I'll just have to start now for next year.

An Update on Nothing

Now that I do not have a job with routine hours anymore, it's hard to find time to blog. Well, I take that back, it's now hard to blot out precious lounging time to blog.

It's nice to be back in the department as a full time student again, except this time I get paid for it. There's definitely something to be said about being around people who are just as divorced from reality as I am. Though I think I jumped the gun a little more and have completely alienated reality now that I have time for zombie movies again.

This semester is already coming off to a good start. I understand the readings and the subjects are quite enticing. The class I am unexpectedly looking forward to is the Creative Nonfiction class. We are to write quasi-reflective pieces that would in some way describe the human condition. I already have some ideas for my pieces, though I would definitely do some research on the genre before hand.

Once again, I'm taking a class with Dr. Farmer for a Chinese related class. The first book is already good! It's about flood myths and awesome bawdawesome. Once I'm finished, I'll have a more substantial summary. There is a girl that knits in class. I'm widely jealous yet still have too much shame to knit in such a small class. One day! One day I'll throw off these shackles of conformity and civility! And wear nothing but a burlap sack with argyle socks!

As far as crafting goes, I haven't finished anything in a long time. I started plenty of things though, but that's pretty normal. I've finally come back around to the cycle of cross stitch again. I really want to finish the Zelda cross stitch sometime this year, but I suspect it'll be harder as the semester progresses.

Let's see, other than that, life has been pretty much the same. I started working out at Crossfit Richardson after hearing Mel talk about it so much. While there are no physical results yet, I feel much more energetic and tons more talkative, much to Joey's dismay. But now that I have more energy, I feel like I can do everything with gusto. Like... bumming around... HARDCORE!

So.... lalala!

Huzzah!!

The semester is over!

I just turned in my last paper and am free! I didn't sign up for any classes for the summer so that I could have plenty of time catching up on doing nothing.

It's time to go double speed on all my neglected project!

D'oh!

It seems that I have to take a short hiatus from all my fun stuff, I just have too much on my plate right now with school and work. I'm not too worried about my papers as I'm making good progress on them, at least in ways of research. My last paper for the semester is due on May 7th, and after that I'm going to play until I drop!

I'm quite excited about one of my papers, actually. The paper I will be writing for the Women in Traditional China is coming along quite smoothly, and if everything goes well, I might expand it to my Master Thesis. The era I'm going to be examining is a little before my field of interest, but I believe that with ample research and a level head, I can expand the topic to modern day past 1949. I guess this kind of fits in my craft blog! I'm certainly putting in a lot of time and love into it.

Here's my thesis, the era I will write about is from Pre-Han period to the Tang dynasty:

"In this paper I intend to examine the depiction of jealous behavior in women in biographies from ancient and medieval China. The narratives selected are not retold simply for entertainment; instead, they serve as cautionary tales for the consequences of jealousy within the harem. The depiction of these 'petty' and 'vicious' women portrayed the dynamics of the inner court negatively, but the modern reader should keep in mind that many of these stories were written by men with agendas. Much like etiquette books such as the Book of Filial Piety for Women and the Leinu Zhuan, these stories serve as prescriptions rather than descriptions."

The main gist for the paper is to to examine the representation of jealousy in medieval Chinese literature. Those stories certainly make for raunchy tales, but taken in larger social context, they are much more significant than simply the realm of entertainment.

Because I only have about a month to two for this paper, I can only do so much in ways of research. Hopefully though, like I said, I would have to the chance to expand it later in my life. When I first thought of the idea, I was conflicted because the topic seemed irrelevant, trivial, and even a bit frivolous. As the question constantly proposed by a history professor last year... "So? Why does this matter? Who cares?" These questions are difficult to answer as I still have not seen a consistent answer to "Why study history?" These questions become more difficult to answer especially when I'm faced with a family of engineers and businessmen who live in the now. Though truth be told, if I were living in worse conditions, I certainly wouldn't have chosen the BA path. But since I'm spoiled, I can!

On a lighter note, Joey and I have quite a bit planned for the summer! We're going to the Scaraborough Faire and then Mudbug Madness in Louisiana in May. Which brings me to my next project:

To eat my weight worth of craw fish!!! NOM NOM NOM!

We're also planning for the annual anime convention, but as of now that's still not set in stone. Every year I declare that I'll go, but every year we flake out. Not this one though!! Not this one!

I also have quite a few projects I need to finish; crochet, knitting, and some cross stitch. The Ravelry scarf exchange is going to start soon, so after my papers, I'll definitely have to start that! On top of that, I have some video games I want to finish! I started a XBox 360 game; Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom. It's a really pretty game and a lot of fun! However, the graphics are a bit frightening, so Joey has to supervise the sessions so I can actually progress in the game. It's the first time I had to turn off the "blood" setting because it was just so unsettling. That said, I still want to give Ninja Gaiden II a whirl when I get the chance.

So for now I bid Adieu! to my crafty life! I shall see you again after May 7th when we'll indulge in passionate... passion!